Gamers who have gamed for a long time

do you find it difficult to get into games? I’ve got Epic Games and Steam Games libraries chock-full of classic top-tier games along with many other newer games like Stray or 2077, and a bunch of indie titles. I just can’t be bothered to download and install them, much less try to get into the characters and storylines. Used to be I couldn’t wait to see what happened in the story, what new items you could collect, what new worlds the developers had created. Not anymore. I return to playing the same franchise for a quick FPS match or three and then I’m done.

PrincessLeiasCat, (edited )

Same. 100%. I don’t love it though, tbh. I’d love to get immersed in something new again.

And MP has always been toxic, but goddamn…as a woman you just get sick of some of the shit you hear. I have to straight up turn text chat off, and it’s rare that I go on mic chat even though good communication would help a game so much.

Ghostalmedia,
@Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world avatar

The older I get, I find that I tend to default to two things:

  1. Games that I’ve played before that help me turn my brain off. Kind of like a form of meditation.
  2. Games that have a mechanic or a story that is genuinely new or engaging.
elvith,

For me, I’d like to add “games that let you set your own pace and objective and let you achieve things your own way” (obviously something like Minecraft, but I also enjoyed Tears Of The Kingdom because of that)

Or, if multi-player: Be co-op, make me do some crazy shit and make me laugh (e.g. Human Fall Flat)

PraiseTheSoup,

I’m playing Tears of the Kingdom now and it’s the only game that’s kept my attention since Dark Souls 3. I am not generally a fan of open world games. Even as a huge souls fan I didn’t really care for Elden Ring. But this Zelda game is incredible. There is so much more going on than I expected and it is just plain fun.

Globulart,

It’s probably the game which has distracted me the most from my current objective.

The number of “ooooo what’s that?” moments that derailed the next couple hours entirely was massive.

Maybe my first oblivion playthrough comes close but not much else.

Grofit,

Same as above, as a kid (80s) games were new and interesting, even shovelware games you would get for free on C64 mags were interesting.

Over the years games have just become more and more streamlined, and action focused, it’s basically like Hollywood now where they just churn out nice looking mediocre films to make money.

The 2nd point though js why I responded as I really agree with the point on something new being what makes games interesting now. They don’t even have to be amazing, just offer a new experience.

For example when Dayz came out, that was a nice breath of fresh air, every time I loaded up the game with friends I never knew what was going to happen. Same sort of thing with Phasmophobia, was genuinely amazing for the first week we played it, just nothing else like it. Now you can’t move for DayZ style games or Phasmo ripoffs.

I am bored of playing the same sort of stuff, like I’m bored watching super hero movies, I want new experiences (VR has some good experiences).

LongPigFlavor, (edited )

When I was younger, gaming was all I did as it was my only hobby and I didn’t have many friends. I’d play the same 5-6 games since my catalog was small and my folk weren’t keen to buy more. I didn’t care much about graphics, performance, or length. I was also more of a completionist, searched for collectables, completed challenges and time trials, and completed side quests. Nowadays, I have a larger gaming library. I own hundreds of games on Steam, but I’ve hardly played a handful of them. Over time I’ve realized that I play games for killing time more than anything else. I’ve become more conscious of how I’m spending my free time and now I spend my free time doing other things.

Valmond,

I did video games professionally for ten years (grew up on the ZX81, C64, Amiga) and since then I have a hard(er) time because the only things that changes in new games is :

A) better graphics (potentially)

B) The back-story

I don’t really care for A, and for B it’s kind of scarce… I only need to save the world of kill the dragon so many times.

I did a 180 and learned chess which I feel wildly rewarding!

I’m also making a “slow game” (12 “action points” every like 12h, fantasy settings) that you can play for 5 minutes a day, but can be really immersive (it’s text only).

I don’t really know what I wanted to say here, but I too hope I’ll find some new breathtaking game :-)

MDKAOD, (edited )

There as a brief period in the early 00’s where this kind of browser game was prevalent. I can’t remember the names, but same concept. They were perfect for lunch period, issue commands, and hope you made the right choices when you logged in the next day.

Valmond,

Ah the time before the enshittifycation. Maybe I should really finish the game … I’ll try :-)

MDKAOD,

Found it, and apparently it still exists: www.planetarion.comThe universe ticks every real world hour.

Valmond,

Hah excellent, I did never play that specific game but some that were quite similar :-)

There were loads of people trying to make those too, with wildly varying degrees of success :-)

MightyWeaksauce,
@MightyWeaksauce@lemmy.world avatar

I think the prevailing response here appears to be that as you get older you just don’t have the time like you did back in the day and so it’s harder to get into games. I think there’s truth to that but i wanted to point out something else. When you get older most people tend to do less NEW things and instead get more comfortable with what they know. Old people don’t know what’s going on in music, or art, or cinema, or even science because you find a world view that works for you and you stick with it, it gets comfortable.

When you’re younger you are more likely to give a fair shake to that new music genre or video game because you have so little to judge it against and you’re thirsty for new experiences. Not so much when you get older, people stop experimenting with NEW in favor of reliably good. Maybe use that perspective when looking at a new game or a game that you own but have never gotten into.

I have owned Rimworld since 2019 I think but I never got past the tutorial until recently. For some reason it all clicked and now I can’t stop playing. I think part of that is because it is so NEW to me, I haven’t played anything like it before so I can get swept away by it. Hard to do that when you’re playing your millionth FPS or open world slog.

Also playing with friends helps a lot. My significant other is a new convert to video games and it’s an absolute blast introducing them to new content. I had no need to go back and play Stardew Valley again… but it sure was fun lol

_pete_,

I’m nearly 40, been playing since the old Commodore 64 days.

I’ve always loved games, but with a wife and kids I don’t have anywhere near as much time as I used to with them, which means I think quite a lot about what I want to play in the 6 hours or so a week that I can actually do it.

I feel like I’m in a minority in that I still love much of the AAA stuff - Cyberpunk and Baldur’s Gate 3 is my jam right now, I might get Spider-Man 2 when it drops in price a bit and I have more time.

I love indie games too but I don’t always have as much time as I want to invest in them, I did get through Bombrush Cyberfunk recently and it scratched a Jet Set Radio itch that I had long forgotten about.

So yea, I still love them but it’s partly because it’s just always been my hobby.

PrincessLeiasCat,

Been looking at Cyberpunk. It’s good?

_pete_,

It is!

I picked it up at launch and it’s improved quite a lot over the last few years, better combat and skill trees, fewer bugs, better cops, the world is beautiful and the quest design and performance animation makes Starfield feel pretty antiquated.

It’s still not perfect but I’m on my second play through and I’m still having a good time, I’m very excited to see the new stuff in Phantom Liberty too.

PrincessLeiasCat,

Thanks! Glad to see you like it!

chilicheeselies,

You are just getting older. You cant expect to keep doing the same thing over and over and get the same high from it. Chasing the dragon. You need to include fresh, new experiences to liven things up. You’ll always ennoy games to some degree, but you will never get the aame satisfaction from it that you did when you were tounger and it was fresher.

Zarxrax,

I feel like a lot of games these days make it difficult to get into, ironically by trying too hard to make it easy to get into, with excessive tutorialization. Part of it might also be the types of games that you like. For example, I want to play a game to have fun and challenge myself, not to sit around watching a story play out for a half hour while I walk around doing nothing. So the majority of popular games that people are always talking about are the kind of games that I would absolutely hate. I want to just jump in and play. The new Super Mario Wonder game is a pretty good example of something that just gets out of your way and lets you play the game, so I have been enjoying it quite a bit for the past few days. The recent F-zero 99 is also an enjoyable racing game for me, for the same reasons. I have also been getting into fighting games more in the past few years, so I’ve been playing Street Fighter 6 a lot.

So the most important thing I have learned, is that I can no longer just look at which games are considered “good”, because in many cases I’m going to hate them. When I was younger, I would love just about any of the popular games. But now, I know what I like, and that’s what I gravitate to.

ClamDrinker,

Yup. Used to be it was quite easy to find the games that were worthwhile to play since there was very little for profit games and not too much choice. Nowadays only if I hear from people I trust to have a taste for the games I want to play will I actually get excited. Its just easier to go back to classics because you know you’re going to have a better time than most things you buy new.

Always on the look out though, gems are still being produced, they just became a lot less findable.

amio,

Yes. I've never had a super easy time getting into new games, and for the past several years I haven't seen one thing that's even slightly interesting. Depression is a factor, but also a lot of new games are straight up dog shit. I tend to fall back on retro gaming. I think I have 90 minutes played in Starfield and that's the only new game I played for the past several years.

ExtraMedicated,

I kinda need to be in the mood to play a game. Usually, once I finally start playing something, it’s easy to keep going. But sometimes I’ll have to be pretty bored before I’ll play a new game. I still haven’t played RDR2, but I seem to be more eager to play metroidvanias and PS1-style indie horror games.

rastilin,

I think it comes down to just knowing what is good. When you're young you don't have any experience to judge quality by. As you get older you can rapidly assess that something sucks, even if other people are pumping it up. Either in terms of gameplay or plot or whatever, now you have standards. Also, a lot of modern games just don't respect your time, and as you get older you realize your time is valuable so you just don't have the patience for that.

I'm in my 30s, I still game, but I'm a lot quicker to just go "this sucks" and move on to something else.

vagrantprodigy,

Trying a new game often feels like work as I get older. I find myself going back to the things I know already rather than new stuff.

FrostbyteIX,

I find that as I get older, I struggle trying to keep up with players in high competition games…games like CoD, Halo, even Rocket League I simply cannot get better no matter how much I try. I used to enjoy those kinds of games when I was younger but it makes me a little sad to know I can’t play them…

So I play single player RPGs or Co-op…I’m an absolute sucker for Starfield and similar games

JustZ,

As I get older I find I have to know what I like and spend extra time selecting titles because I know that I won’t be buying that many games because I don’t have time to play all that much. I buy what I know I will like and that way I will finish it. I don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted time.

Sometimes I jump back and replay games that I really enjoyed. Even like an MMO, I’ll reactive my character after years of not playing.ast game I bought was Witcher 3 on Steam sale. Will be buying Cities 2 this week, after waiting for it for years and years.

MightyWeaksauce,
@MightyWeaksauce@lemmy.world avatar

I’m excited for Cities 2 as well but keep reading its poorly optimized. Let’s hope not 🤞

JustZ,

It’ll come around. I’m okay with it.

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